For Family and Home
by BenSky-VestaraKhai
Summary: One-shots of universes where things end better for our favorite heroes. After all, hope springs eternal. For how can the heroes who inspire hope fight without believing it themselves? Focuses on the Batfamily, but other characters will appear as well. Universes include Young Justice, canon,and made up. (Recommend reading at 3/4 story width)
1. Chapter 1

**ROBINS HAVE A THING FOR OLDER WOMEN**

EARTH 99 

**Dick and Babs**

Everybody could see it. While Batgirl and Robin never actually announced they were a couple, they didn't need to for everyone to know they were together. Really, _everyone_.

And people didn't need to actually know Batgirl's secret identity of Barbara Gordon was more than two years older than her other half. They didn't need to know she wasn't just Dick Grayson's best friend, but his first friend, in many ways both teacher and peer.

The citizens of Gotham could tell by the way Batgirl was always protective of Robin. As if she was an older...not sibling, but a guardian. Whenever he suffered anything more than a minor wound, she became downright deadly. Sometimes the criminals would actually prefer a beating from the Big Bat rather than his redheaded sidekick.

And whenever Batgirl looked like she was about to be overwhelmed, it didn't matter if Robin was dead tired from several days full of AP coursework or running ragged after one of the crazies. He would gain a second wind and both his punches and his taunts hurt twice as much as they usually did.

Eventually, the villains of the city learned to regard both of them as dangerous, at times even more so than the Bat. For while there was only one Batman, there were _two_ sidekicks, though none of the criminals actually called them that to their faces except the crazies.

Because they were crazy, what else was new?

In many ways, they were Gotham's genuine celebrity couple. For while Batman was Gotham's greatest hero, not even the most optimistic of folk could call him anything even resembling cheerful. Robin, however, was hope personified. The city's darling child, for he gave glimpses of a brighter and better future. Batgirl was everything Batman was without the coldness and terseness that alienated those who would otherwise be allies.

They were more than just heroes. They were Gotham's spirit.

There was one Christmas where after the Dynamite Duo had apprehended the Riddler and saved more than a hundred people, Robin had grabbed Batgirl and kissed her live on television. As a result, there was a lot of cheering, and it only increased when Batgirl hugged Robin closer and increased the fervor of the kiss.

Guards were surprised to discover Poison Ivy and the Joker crying in the lounge of Arkham Asylum when they saw it on TV. Even the goddamn Batman was caught smiling a day later by Commissioner Gordon.

It wasn't surprising that when Robin left, and Batgirl disappeared (nobody really knew why, but there were rumors it was related to the Commissioner's daughter being shot by the Joker), that hope was lost. After a time came the other Robins and Batgirls, and they did well filling their predecessors' footsteps.

In time, hope was restored, but people wished that there had been a resolution to the romance of the first pair. Whatever had happened to them?

But the truth, known to few outside the superhero community, is that the hope was indeed fulfilled. Even though for a time, the Dynamite Duo went their separate ways, with Batgirl becoming Oracle and Robin becoming Nightwing, they found their way back to each other in the end. There were troubles to solve, old wounds that needed to heal, but they slogged on regardless.

They remembered, of course, the days when they had been heads over heels in love, and what they wouldn't admit to each other was that the feelings had never gone away. But there was too much to do, too little time, and too few of them to go around. And the fact remained that the heroes of Gotham were never really good at expressing their feelings, not when it really mattered. So the romance was put on the backburner, and there it simmered for years.

And then one day, after something a little too close for comfort, the barriers broke down. Dick knelt before his oldest friend, someone who had been there for him at times when even the Bat wasn't, and whispered, "I love you, Babs." _And I always will._

The rest, as they say, is history.

Starting from as little over a year after they were married, Dick would tease his younger brothers at family gatherings that all the Robins seemed to have a thing for older women. Then Babs would roll her eyes and punch him in the shoulder, smiling. Dick would pout and start whining in a joking manner that she should be more supportive.

Then, laughing, she would draw him in for a kiss, much to the vocalized disgust of the boys and the delight of the girls. Jason would yell at them to get a room, while Tim would try to disappear into the shadows, blushing at the intensity of their kiss. "

Damian would just scowl and say, "Grayson, your pathetic effort at flirting with Gordon is unnecessary and nauseating. She's already in wedlock with you."

Dick would then grin and ask "You looking for tips, Dami?"

Of course, then Damian would start cursing in a mixture of Arabic and Coptic "how decadent and corrupt Grayson's shameless flirting was" and that he needed no help from a man who sported a disco suit as his costume once.

Stephanie would squeal and take a photo , tagging it #BestCouple4ever! or some variation, and send it to everyone.

And it never escaped Barbara's notice that despite their protests, Dick's younger brothers would secretly smile and save them. Jason had even printed one out and framed it, something that Kori had let slip at a party. And Cass would be sitting quietly next to Steph, a smile on her face and eyes almost glowing with joy.

Meanwhile, in the background, Bruce and Selina would be smiling at the sight while Alfred cooked, humming a merry song.

Just this once, perhaps there was a happy ending for them all after all. 

**Jason and Donna and Starfire**

Jason never really understood what was going on. Seriously, what did older women have that made him and every single one of his brothers fall for them? Not that there was anything wrong with that...

First, there was Dickiebird and Barbara. Weirdly enough, that he could get. Redheads, after all, were just so damn attractive. That, and also he himself had a small crush on Babs back in the day.

But the rest was just ridiculous.

There was Tim and his one-time attraction to Cass. Replacement had issues if he was going after their sister. Fortunately for their collective sanity (which wasn't saying much, 'cause you know, them), it had eventually cooled to platonic affection and Tim ended up falling again for Stephanie. Funny, they had always thought he would end up with Kon.

And then Demon Bird ended up having a crush on Stephanie as well. That, no one had seen coming. Not that the now teenaged Damian would ever admit it. Oh sure, Damian just happened to be staring at Steph when she had finished her spar with Cass because her utter ineptitude at fighting was getting on his nerves.

It was definitely not because she had that lovely grin on her face, and her entire body was gleaming from the effort of that workout (dammit Replacement had all the luck). To put it in one word, she was hot. No, Demon Bird was certainly not staring at her because of that. Steph had started guffawing as soon as Jason told her.

Damian never had a chance between the two of them. In those few months, Steph became Jason's favorite sister, united by, if nothing else, the desire to see their younger sibling squirm.

But then again, was he any better? He had been twelve years old when he met Donna for the first time. He had heard a lot about her, from other heroes and especially Dick, who was one of her oldest friends. As a result, he was a pretty big fanboy with a crush. That was embarrassing for both of them, now looking back on it.

She was a badass Amazon princess a good ten years older than him, while he was a spring chicken trying too hard to fill his brother's footsteps. That, and he hadn't stopped flirting with her the entire mission. It was only at the very end when he had berated her for expecting him to be too much like Dick and take care of everything that something developed between them.

Of course, being killed and then being brought back to life put a damper on things. For so many years, Jason's journey to mental stability and repairing his relationships with the Family had taken greater precedence.

It was only years later that Jason realized he had never been meant for her.

That had always been his best friend, Roy Harper. After years of not acting on their feelings, they had finally gotten with each other after Roy gained the balls to tell Donna he was still in love with her.

Damn, he still owed Wally a hundred bucks for that.

Jason was happy for them, really, but he had no clue where that left him. He felt there would be no one else who he would be so attracted to.

But then again, when had he ever been right? It was only a couple of months after Dickiebird's marriage that he ran into Starfire. It didn't hit him that he really liked her until she began laughing at a joke he had made.

And it didn't compute that he had succumbed to the curse once again until after their first date. For Starfire was also one of his brother's friends. Scratch that, she was one of his girlfriends.

 _Damn it, Dickiebird! This is your fault!_ After all, it had been Goldie who had started the trend.

"You are moping again, love?" Kori asked with a mysterious smile on her face that promised a great many things in the near future. Things with _copious_ details.

Then again, maybe the Robin tradition wasn't such a bad thing after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**HOW SIBLINGS MAKE LIFE DIFFICULT**

EARTH 99

It was the Demon Bird's fault. And Jason's. Why had Tim been expecting anything else?

"I believe the goal was to subdue them, Robin," Tim said, already developing a headache as he berated his two idiot brothers some distance away from one of Black Mask's old warehouses. "Subdue and track them."

"Tt. Shut up, Red Robin," Damian sneered.

"I don't know, Replacement," Jason said, stretching his arms behind his back."We got all the weapon smugglers, didn't we?"

"You two were only supposed to plant a tracker on one of them, and let the tagged thug flee back to whatever new hole Black Mask is currently residing in!" Tim hissed. "You were not, I repeat,not, supposed to break the clavicles of every rogue in Gotham!"

"Stop exaggerating. You're as flighty as Nightwing sometimes, kid," Jason drawled as he reloaded the magazine of his pistol with rubber bullets. "There were, like, only twenty of them."

"Besides," Damian said smugly, "this is certainly going to let us know where Mask is. He can't ignore this."

"This what?" Tim asked warily. He almost didn't want to know.

His tentative question was soon answered by the explosion of the warehouse.

Jason removed his helmet and grinned. "That."

Tim wondered how disappointed Dick would be if he strangled both of his idiot siblings right now. He knew Bruce, at least, would definitely welcome the peace.


End file.
